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Closer

~ Joy Division
4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
Price: £4.48 & eligible for Free UK delivery on orders over £5 with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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Price For All Three: £16.24

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Product details

  • Audio CD (12 April 2006)
  • Number of Discs: 1
  • Label: London
  • ASIN: B00002DE4E
  • Other Editions: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette
  • Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 4,841 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

    Popular in this category:

    #67 in  Music > Indie > British

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Track Listings

1. Heart And Soul
2. Twenty Four Hours
3. Eternal
4. Decades
5. Atrocity Exhibition
6. Isolation
7. Passover
8. Colony
9. Means To An End

Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review
In retrospect, Closer, the second and final album by this Mancunian band, seems to point straight at singer Ian Curtis's suicide, which happened a few months before it was released. The band's reverberating mesh of minor-key lines and Curtis's bass voice are gloomy enough on their own, and attention to the words reveals references to blacker-than-black stories by JG Ballard and Joseph Conrad; the void and its terrors were splitting Curtis apart from the inside. "I put my trust in you," he sings, and his voice leaves no doubt that that trust has been betrayed. But the music, grim and powerful as it is, points to the direction the surviving members took as New Order, incorporating the mechanical gravity of club rhythms. --Douglas Wolk

CD Description
The news of singer Ian Curtis's suicide still hung in the air when this album was released. Given the deep introspective nature of Joy Division's music, his death invested CLOSER with an even greater pessimism. Yet there is a fragile beauty in its content and if Curtis's voice seems more distant, it complements the sparse textures created by mesmerising synthesizer lines and occasional, highly effective, piano. Slow, hypnotic tempos increase the sense of brooding mystery andif the few faster songs provide musical relief, their lyrics prove equally tortured. Eerie, yet compulsive, CLOSER confirmed Joy Divison's pre-eminent place in rock's pantheon.

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Customer Reviews

39 Reviews
5 star:
 (34)
4 star:
 (4)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.8 out of 5 stars (39 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Easily one of my favourites., 13 April 2006
By dynamitekid156 "dynamitekid156" (Notts) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)      
This is probably my favourite album ever made. It's simply beautiful. Recorded shortly before Ian Curtis' suicide in May 1980 - and ironically turning him into an icon to this day - it features the best work Joy Division ever made in this form. New Order, much as they tried, never quite measured up, even twenty-six years later.

Greatly assisted by the genius of Martin Hannett and his breathtaking production, the band are on fine, fatalistic form. Ian Curtis is at his lyrical best, especially on the closer, 'Decades,' but the real star here is Bernard Sumner. Always an underrated guitar player, (check out the messy solos on early Warsaw tune 'Failures') on this album he unleashes screeches, stabs of pure noise and wiry single note lines over the top of Peter Hook's ever-chiming bass. He also does a sterling job sitting at the keyboard, playing the album out with his wistful yet heartbreaking line in 'Decades' closing passage.

This is an extraordinary, exceptional album that's simultaneously depressing due to its circumstance and uplifting due to its beauty. Any New Order fan, or indeed any fan of music, is missing out if they don't purchase this astonishing, chilling example of why Ian Curtis is still missed.
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27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Pure, beautiful horror, 3 Jan 2000
By clarketj@yahoo.co.uk (Stroud, England) - See all my reviews
Despite their primitive sound, Joy Division were always perfect. They created bleak, austere slices of suffering that reflected a band utterly committed to a post-punk aesthetic of artistic salvation. Closer, their finest forty-five minutes, is simultaneously depressing and uplifting, creating an emotional no-man's land that leaves you feeling empty but enlightened.

The music works by creating simple and nagging melodic lines that dig into your subconscious and remain there like splinters. Each note and drum strike is played with absolute conviction as Ian Curtis half-sings/half-talks over the top with his tales of loneliness and suffering, tempered by a belief in salvation ("If you could just see the beauty/There's things I could never describe").

Some of the band's best songs are here. 'Isolation' manages to sound positive despite its theme of dejection. 'Heart and Soul' is hauntingly beautiful. 'Decades' closes the album perfectly with its glassy keyboard line and solemn vocal delivery. Each song acts as a hymn - a religious exorcism of darkness that leaves nothing but a stark white light in its wake.

It's difficult to find a time to actually 'enjoy' Joy Division, but there's a poetry, purity, beauty and sadness to 'Closer' that is incredibly compelling. Overlook at your peril.

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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars These pleasures and waiting distractions., 19 Feb 2006
This is astoundingly beautiful album. Without knowing anything about Ian Curtis, it gives an insight into his mind before his suicide. The subject matter is bleak but more meaningful than any processed sanitized pop records. It begins with atrocity Exhibition and a drum roll which mimics a machine gun firing. Ian Curtis recoiling at the horror of war. The music is often slow and melodic, however this fits the themes and mood of the lyrics perfectly. Ian Curtis voice acutely articulates his despair and although maybe not conventionally brilliant singer it’s perfect for the atmosphere of the album. Any illusions to higher human goals and aspirations are striped away as he mockingly sings ‘God in his wisdom took you by the hand, God in his wisdom made you understand’. The big questions are asked ‘existence what does it matter?’ without seeming overblown or pretentious. Most people have only heard of ‘Love will tear us apart’, but this is truly their masterpiece and shouldn’t be ignored.
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Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars The Highest Human Achievement
Essential. Peerless. This is the end product of millions of years of evolution. A terrible, cold beauty that stands as testament to the meaninglessness of existence. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Sal

4.0 out of 5 stars song by song review
im editing this after listening to it about 10 times now.

Atrocity Exhiition - like it. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Mr. Owen Martin

5.0 out of 5 stars 'Leaders of Men'
Still sounding years ahead of its time, 'Closer' has a reputation for coldness, for despair and for grim Northern doom-and-gloom but I don't hear anything like that. Read more
Published 19 months ago by Paul Ess.

5.0 out of 5 stars A 40 minute long suicide note.
In her book "Touching From A Distance",Ian Curtis' widow writes that if she'd really read carefully the lyrics to "Closer",she would have realised how ill he really was... Read more
Published 19 months ago by Franz Bieberkopf

5.0 out of 5 stars What can I say?
Its hard to explain the immense weight of this composition, especially in the light of the multitude of adoring fans who have seen fit to quite rightly accord this piece 5 stars... Read more
Published 21 months ago by Prof Whiteside

5.0 out of 5 stars Glacial, sepulchral
Whereas Unknown Pleasures was intensely, unremittingly deep and heavy, Closer is more glacial, as though a savage black depression had moved on to the acceptance of suicide. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Mike Cormack

4.0 out of 5 stars Joy Division's greatest
This and the first album, Unknown Pleasures, are the only complete original albums released by the band, as singer Ian Curtis had committed suicide two months before its release... Read more
Published 23 months ago by Laurence Upton

5.0 out of 5 stars "This is the way, step inside............."
Joy Divison's best album opens with 'Atrocity Exhibition', which is damned uncomfortable listening wherever you sit. Read more
Published on 19 May 2007 by Kevin Clarke

5.0 out of 5 stars in the top 25 albums ever
there's no escaping the fact that joy division were serious, very serious. the fact that ian curtis was suffering his own personal problems can be felt through the songs on this... Read more
Published on 30 Jan 2007 by Arnold Golightly

5.0 out of 5 stars It touches somewhere deep inside
Sorry, this still remains the best album of all-time. An accolade too far, you might say, but the combination of the lyrics and vocals with the production and the distinctly new... Read more
Published on 28 Jul 2006 by Simon

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Closer
66% buy the item featured on this page:
Closer 4.8 out of 5 stars (39)
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